Nothing tells a former partner exactly how you feel like naming having a venomous snake named after them.
For anyone harbouring a grudge against an ex, there are a wealth of ways to express your feelings this Valentine’s Day.
While doing physical harm to a former significant other is generally frowned upon, there’s nothing to stop you giving their name to a hapless insect, for example, and tossing it to a hungry animal before letting nature take its course.
Here are some of the other vengeful things you can do in your ex’s name on February 14.
Tell your ex exactly what you think of them by having a cockroach named after them, thanks to the romantics at El Paso Zoo in Texas.
You can then watch live on Facebook as keepers feed your ex’s creepy crawly namesake to a meerkat. Simples.
If there’s something fishy about your ex, this might be the one for you.
For around £15 you can pay to give a salmon your ex’s name and then watch as it’s tossed to a hungry bear by staff at Oregon’s Wildlife Images Rehabilitation & Education Centre.
At the Richmond Wildlife Centre, it’s worms and beetles being given the treatment.
“For that truly terrible ex, make a $5 donation and name a hornworm after your ex and watch that horned devil be devoured,” the centre wrote in a Facebook post.
“Your worthless ex can finally do something nice – their namesake helping us to feed the animals in our care.”
If you’ve got no real desire to see your ex devoured by some sharp-toothed predator but still want them to know exactly what you think of them, you could take the approach of getting a snake named after them.
That offer comes courtesy of Wild Life Sydney Zoo, and to add a bit spice the reptile in question is a deadly venomous brown snake.
If a cupcake seems to lack some of the spite of a cockroach or a snake, make sure you pay attention to the video.
As well as a delicious sweet snack with your ex’s name on it, this Heart Broken gift set from Mr Cupcakes also comes with a gold-plated chocolate hammer with which to exact some sweet, cathartic revenge. Smashing!
When it comes to putting a name to Chicago's annual battle against its infamously inclement weather, it turns out that the practical is also the political.
“Abolish ICE” was the top vote-getter in the city's “You Name a Snowplow” contest. Choosing the protest slogan with a double meaning proved a potent way for voters to jab at President Donald Trump after he sent Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers into the city and its suburbs last fall in a major immigration crackdown.
With a surge of ICE officers beginning in September, “Operation Midway Blitz” resulted in more than 4,000 arrests, a fatal shooting and a sour taste among Chicago's Democratic leaders and many of its residents, particularly in large immigrant populations. Despite mid-winter frigid cold, “ICE Out” protests in recent weeks have continued downtown, near ICE facilities and throughout the suburbs.
The snowplow-naming contest, in its fourth year, also produced winning names ranging from those paying tribute to the new pope, who hails from Chicago, to a homegrown horror purveyor and the popular quarterback of the city's NFL franchise. The top six winners will get a snowplow named in their honor.
In a statement, Mayor Brandon Johnson thanked Chicago voters “for their unmatched creativity, sense of humor, and civic pride."
When asked whether he was reticent about the potentially prickly response to the name, a spokesperson said that “Abolish ICE” was the runaway winner, adding, “The people of Chicago clearly have no issue with the name of this snowplow."
Requests for comment were also emailed to ICE and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security.
Contests in many cities produce names of snowplows, but they rarely carry the edge of Chicago's top pick. In Nashville, “Dolly Plowton” pays homage to Tennessee native and country music legend Dolly Parton, while in Minnesota, pop superstar Taylor Swift is honored on a plow dubbed “Taylor Drift.”
Chicagoans are capable of more anodyne names, too. Other winning contest names this year include “Stephen Coldbert," for late-night talk show host Stephen Colbert. There's “Pope Frio XIV,” with the Spanish word for “cold” rhyming with the Chicago-born pontiff's name, Leo.
Then there's the “Blizzard of Oz” and “Svencoolie,” a play on the Chicago TV horror host, Svengoolie; and finally, “Caleb Chilliams” for the quarterback whose last name is Williams, and who led the Bears to the playoffs for the first time in 15 years.
Johnson said he and his Department of Streets and Sanitation, which maintains 300 trucks to clear 9,400 miles (15,000 kilometers) of streets, are “grateful and inspired by the record-breaking participation in the contest this year." There were 13,300 plow names submitted and 39,000 final votes were cast.
The contest was conducted the same way as it was in the past three years, said Ryan Gage, spokesperson for the Streets and Sanitation department. Submissions are made to the Chicago Shovels website. A survey app is used for both initial and final phases of the contest.
A group of Streets and Sanitation staff members then reviews all the submissions and chooses the finalists, which are then forwarded to the mayor's office for final approval, Gage said.
O'Connor reported from Springfield, Ill.
FILE - A man crosses Wacker Drive in front of a waiting city snowplow in Chicago, Jan. 28, 2019. (Rich Hein/Chicago Sun-Times via AP, File)
